I heard that Randy Pausch died this morning.

I didn't know the man personally and perhaps you have no idea who I'm speaking of but he's the professor who gave the famous "last lecture" after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He has touched my life deeply and my heart and prayers are with his wife this evening and with his children.

Thank you Professor Pausch for everything you taught me and all of us.

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=4614281&page=1

Labels: prof randy pausch

Labels: cute animal photos

Historically, wolves roamed throughout the lower 48 states, but centuries of misconceptions and hostility toward the species led to intense human persecution. These factors coupled with habitat loss effectively wiped out the species throughout most of the country during the twentieth century.

Fact Sheets

Wolf size, weight, colorings, behavior, status and more can be learned in these colorful fact sheets. Complete with sounds, videos and more.

Gray Wolf | Red Wolf | Mexican Wolf

4 Things You Should Know about Wolves

1. Wolves in the wild are not dangerous to people. Although wolves are large, powerful animals that could kill humans, they do not. According to a 2002 study about wolf conflicts with humans, there is no documented case of a healthy, wild wolf killing a human in the United States. By comparison, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate between 10 to 20 people are killed and 4.7 million attacked each year by man's best friend, the domestic dog.

2. Wolves perform a vital role in the environment

3. Wolves are not pets

4. It is everyone's responsibility to do something each day to make the world a
   better place.

Adopt a wolf today

More wolf resources...

Wolf Conservation Center
International Wolf Center

Labels: animal conservation, endangered species, wolves

Late last night I got my latest cover and I'm thrilled!

It's the work of Croco, who I still think is a complete cover art genius and I can't thank her enough for this one.

This is for my latest Cobblestone Press release. There's no release date yet, but I'll keep y'all posted. ;-)

Labels: cute animal photos

The southern sea otter is a threatened species

I'm doing some research for my latest wip (see charity call in the next post) and I've decided to do a weekly "animal awareness" post every Thursday. Animals are the burden of my heart. They always have been, but truthfully, the older I get, the less I am able to do physically.

That makes me sound like I'm 80! It's just, when I was in my 20s I worked with marine life rescue groups. I used to foster dogs and cats from the local no-kill shelters. I've always volunteered at the local zoo and always had a small zoo of rescued animals personally, but I'm just seriously finding it harder to do as much as I used to and it left me feeling very depressed.

Then I realized, I have a voice now! It may not be Oprah Winfrey, but I do have readers and I do have people coming by this blog every day. So I'm going to dedicate Thursdays to my beloved animals I hope you will indulge me. :)

One of my favorite animals ever, is the otter, so this first post is dedicated to them. I hope you come away more aware and more compassionate, but regardless, thanks for reading.

Southern sea otter Enhydra lutris nereis To stay warm in chilly ocean waters, otters wear the world’s densest fur. At its thickest, this two-layer fur is made up of more than a million hairs per square inch. (You’ve probably got 100,000 hairs or less on your whole head!) To keep their luxurious coats waterproof, otters spend many hours a day cleaning and grooming. Such good grooming coats their fur with natural oils from their skin and fluffs it with insulating air bubbles.

Diet	crabs, snails, urchins, clams, mussels and other invertebrates
Size	to 4 feet (1.2 m) and up to 50 pounds (23 kg) for females and 70 pounds (32 kg) for males
Range	Southeast Alaska, British Columbia, Washington and California.
Relatives	weasels, skunks, river otters; Family: Mustelidea (sea otters are the only exclusively marine member of this family)
Conservation Notes	In 1750, thousands of sea otters lived and foraged along the California coast. Then fur hunters began killing them for their warm, luxurious pelts. By the early 1900s, only about 50 otters along the isolated Big Sur coast had escaped the slaughter. Today's southern sea otters are descendants of those few survivors. With conservation efforts, the sea otter population has slowly grown to around 2,000, but that number has remained fairly stable for the past few years. Scientists are trying to determine the reasons for the recent lack of growth in the population. These recent growth trends and our lack of understanding about their causes mean an uncertain future for the California sea otter population. Although their numbers have increased, sea otters still face serious risks: oil from a single tanker spill near San Francisco or off the central coast could wipe out the entire California sea otter population.
Cool Facts	An otter may hunt on the seafloor, but always returns to the surface to eat. Floating there on its back, it uses its chest as a table. (And if dinner’s a crab or clam, the otter may use a rock to crack open its prey.) To help it stay warm in cold water, a sea otter burns calories at nearly three times the rate you do. An otter fuels its fast metabolism by eating up to a quarter of its weight in food a day. (A 150-pound person would have to eat 35-40 pounds of food a day to match that!) An otter’s coat has pockets—flaps of skin under each front leg. An otter uses them to stash prey during a dive, which leaves its paws free to hunt some more.

What threatens sea otters today?

The sea otter population in California remains small and vulnerable, and every otter counts. Parasites, such as intestinal worms, and infectious disease cause about 40 percent of otter deaths. Protozoal diseases are usually fatal to marine mammals, and they appear to be on the rise among wild sea otters, possibly because of higher pollution levels in coastal ocean waters.

The greatest threat to the otter population is an oil spill. Because their numbers are low and they are located in a rather small geographic area, the California otter population could be devastated by oil contamination. Oil ruins the insulating property of an otter's fur, so most oiled otters die of hypothermia. Prevention of oil spills is the best strategy, since rehabilitating oiled otters is quite difficult.

Adopt a Sea Otter Today!!!

Labels: Conservation, Sea Otters, wildlife

Labels: animal rescue, animals, blade publishing, it's meow or never

Dale and I found these over the weekend, they're too funny! If you want more, go to policemanvsfireman .com

Labels: policeman vs fireman

Here are the links and photos. For the full story, visit me today after 3pm on the Samhain blog!

The Slipper and The Rose

The Sleeping Dictionary

How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days

Forty Pounds of Trouble The movie trailer is even at this link!

Galaxy Quest


The Parent Trap (the original)

Just Like Heaven

Pretty Woman ~

As an honorable mention…Movies I love, but can’t bear to watch repeatedly
The Notebook

Labels: galaxy quest, How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days, movies, Pretty Woman, The Notebook

Ok, anyone who knows me, knows I LOVE Marissa Jaret Winokur!

We're imaginary bffs for life!! lmao

Well on her myspace blog this morning she linked this and I thought it was so cute, I had to share. ;-)

Labels: Dancing with the Stars, marissa jaret winokur, ryan o'connor

I second guess everything I write.

Does everyone do that?

I love to write stories, but the reality is, I'm also making my living at it, so I need to write what's marketable. This is where the problem starts.

One of the reasons I do so well in the e-book market is because of the wonderful e-book publishers who will take chances on all kinds of stories. I don't stress over what I'm writing, my characters, the situations they find themselves in, it's a joy to write them.

However we all know, there is a lot more money in New York, so I feel pulled to try it. That's where I get stuck.

I start wondering if my stories are too out of the box, my heroines too naive, the sexual intensity too much, not enough? It's never ending to the point I find it very difficult to even finish a story when I start it with the intention of subbing it to New York.

Sigh

If I could just keep the voices in my head quiet, I'd turn out stories, and I believe, eventually find a home in NY for one of them. Maybe my stories are a little different, I tend to explore family relationships and traumatic pasts. I don't write of sex for the sake of sex or even for the exploration of it. I don't write vampires and shifters. Maybe it will take longer then others to find a home, but I believe in my ability to tell an engaging story. I just get impatient and frustrated trying to make the right choice in the right timing.

And yes I DO over think EVERYTHING! It's not just this. lol

I know the advice, write what's in your heart and it will find a home, but the facts are, if you want it to find a home in NY, you can't write just anything...can you? Maybe if you are beyond exceptionally talented. Am I that talented? ...not yet I think, but then if you tell the right story, the story in your heart, you take your talent to the next level.

That's the thing isn't it? If you write the story that burns inside you in such a way that no one who gets their hands on it can put it down, and you're able to stand the fifty sum rejections and keep subbing it, that story will find a home. I think that's the big dream then isn't it?

Well, here's to dreams.